Running show commands through Northbound Netconf API

[ogenstad]

I'm converting some Lux tests and instead using Pytest which connects to NSO through Netconf with ncclient. I think it works quite nicely, as it's both easier to write and validate the tests and they also run a lot faster.

I am a bit stuck on the reconcile part, in one part I want to convert the show commands which have been used previously. I.e., something like this:

show devices device lab-router-1 config ios:interface Loopback 0

or

show devices device lab-router-1 config ios:interface Loopback 0 | display set (or xml or whatever)

I'm not quite sure how to format the XML payload to send something like this to NSO. For the reconcile action I just use `<action xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ns/netconf/actions/1.0"><data>` and then point to the action I want to use.

How would I execute one of the show commands above or any show command for that matter?

[hniska]

Something like

curl -X GET -i -u admin:admin \
--header "Accept: application/yang-data+json" \
http://localhost:8080/restconf/data/devices/device=c0/config/\
tailf-ned-cisco-ios:router/bgp

or 

curl -X GET -i -u admin:admin \
--header "Accept: application/yang-data+xml" \
http://localhost:8080/restconf/data/devices/device=c0/config/\
tailf-ned-cisco-ios:router/bgp

[hniska]

Ah sorry, netconf :)

[hniska · Accepted solution]

You can find some ncclient examples here if you havent already seen them 

https://github.com/ncclient/ncclient/blob/master/examples/

example three shows you how to fetch config

https://github.com/ncclient/ncclient/blob/master/examples/nc03.py

To get config you can just pass in the xpath to the data you want.

[ogenstad]

Thanks!

It's so apparent when you see how you should do it. I was looking around to trigger a show command when I could grab the actual config instead.

I'm happy now but I have a small follow up. When I get the configuration I see a reference counter and backpointer for the lines that have been configured by a service, but not if I've directly configured the device. Is it possible to remove that part? If not I'll just do it in code. For some kinds of tests it will probably be better to have that than to not have it. 

Configured through a service:
netconf-console -u admin -p admin --host 127.0.0.1 --port 2022 --get-config -x "/devices/device[name='ios-pe0']/config/interface/Port-channel[name='10']

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rpc-reply xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" message-id="1">
  <data>
    <devices xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ns/ncs">
      <device>
        <name>ios-pe0</name>
        <config>
          <interface xmlns="urn:ios">
            <Port-channel refcounter="1" backpointer="[ /base:rfs-services/interface-rfs:interface-rfs[interface-rfs:device='ios-pe0'][interface-rfs:interface='LAG'][interface-rfs:id='10'] ]">
              <name>10</name>
              <description refcounter="1">HEJ</description>
            </Port-channel>
          </interface>
        </config>
      </device>
    </devices>
  </data>
</rpc-reply>


Configured directly against the device:
netconf-console -u admin -p admin --host 127.0.0.1 --port 2022 --get-config -x "/devices/device[name='ios-pe0']/config/interface/Port-channel[name='11']"

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rpc-reply xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:netconf:base:1.0" message-id="1">
  <data>
    <devices xmlns="http://tail-f.com/ns/ncs">
      <device>
        <name>ios-pe0</name>
        <config>
          <interface xmlns="urn:ios">
            <Port-channel>
              <name>11</name>
              <description>Directly configured</description>
            </Port-channel>
          </interface>
        </config>
      </device>
    </devices>
  </data>
</rpc-reply>